This invention relates to a method of reducing and compressing a model, and in particular, to a method of reducing and compressing a model by representing the model as a binary, rectilinear grid and compressing the binary grid.
Polygonal models are often used to represent the physical objects that make up a complex system such as an aircraft engine or a nuclear reactor. These models are abundant in areas such as manufacturing and design. It is often necessary to view a large set of these models simultaneously in order to gain an understanding of a large system or to evaluate design decisions. Each model typically consists of tens of thousands of triangles, and a large system typically consists of hundreds to thousands of models. Each triangle usually contains three vertices and a normal, each requiring three components to define. This quantity of geometric primitives overwhelms current graphics processors and main memory resources, thus requiring methods that can reduce the number of polygons in a model and provide an efficient method for storing the polygonal information. There is a need in the art for methods that reduce the number of polygons in a model and compress the amount of information needed to represent the polygonal model.